I wasn’t really that surprised when almost every invitee to Erica’s party turned up. On the days when she goes to nursery there’s usually a gaggle of excited toddlers waving and shouting to her at the window and before she moved up to the pre-preschool room a few weeks ago (she is now officially a Cheeky Chimp) her toddler room-mates would chatter excitedly to me when I dropped her off. When we go to the park she always makes a friend no matter how dreich the weather and when we first met Amanda and Bron it took a matter of seconds for her to race off with her similarly-aged counterparts. She’s exuberant, effervescent and extremely high maintenance but is the most sociable of all my children. I wouldn’t say she’s more popular than the boys – they have a firm group of friends which tends to be close knit – but her circle of friends is wide and fluid. From my perspective of being distinctly unpopular as a schoolie, I’m enthused by the demand for her friendship but if course, this demand leads to supply issues.

In other words the dreaded birthday party.

Over the last 8 weeks Erica has been invited to no less than six birthday parties, all of which have been held at (an admittedly better-than-usual) soft play centre in a local pub. I should be honest here and say that soft play is an anathema to me – witnessing my children mutate from reasonably polite if excitable dwarves to puce-faced sweaty hulks sustained by chicken nuggets and fruit shoots is not my idea of fun – but they absolutely love it. Therein lies my first ‘concern’. If the kids have been invited to a softplay party, how should they be dressed? Party dresses simply cramp your style when you’re trying to clamber up wipe-clean plastic mountains, but on the few occasions that I’ve dressed Erica in a long tshirt and leggings she’s looked distinctly out of place. How do other parents do it?

Added to that there’s the financial obligation too. Erica was gifted some beautiful presents at her birthday party in May but since Bob & I have been self-employed since the turn of the year we simply don’t have any disposable income right now. As you can imagine, six birthday parties in eight weeks really hits the pocket. I don’t feel comfortable turning down invitations and so I try to stick within a budget of £10 for the gift with a card & wrapping paper on top.

This is where my dilemma lies. I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that I have some idiosyncracies when it comes to gifts being bought with hard-earned money. There’s nothing that angers me more than my kids breaking something they’ve been bought as a gift because I can remember all too well how long I could eat for if I had £10 while I was a single parent. For someone to spend almost two hours-worth of wages on something means a great deal to me and I want my kids to appreciate that, but I also want anyone I’m buying for to appreciate it too. Hence, I really begrudge buying crappy pointless toys as gifts no matter how much my kids beg me to. We all know the kind of toys I’m referring to – Gogo’s crazy bones are top of my ‘Vonnie hates these’ list, along with those revolting aliens in a plastic tub of slime which Nairn particularly adores – and so I usually resort to books or crafting kits to encourage parent & child to spend time together. BUT THEN I have the guilt for pushing my parenting ideals onto others.

I decided recently to let Erica pick the present for her friend, but that backfired spectacularly when she – who has a new-found love of gardening – decided that her friend J REALLY needed a massive strawberry planter from B&Q. I bought it since it was clearly a gift from the heart then bought a kite as an apology to his parents for handing over a bucket of mud to look after.

There’s got to be a happy medium, surely? Do other parents stick to a birthday budget? Do you have a policy about the kind of gift you’ll buy? Most importantly, what are your fashion principles?

Posted under family

Hello chums! I have lots and lots to share with you but rather than spill it all in one enormous blog post I’m going to split it up so you have some reading for the weekend. I urge you to check back and leave comments because you all know how much I love a good comment

So! Firstly, Greer celebrated her first birthday on Monday which has just blown my mind. I’m quietly resigned to the fact that I will never have a newborn of my own again and I’m not sure if that’s why Greer turning one has seemed like such a big deal to me. She celebrated her birthday in style by sharing a party with Erica and having lots of cake and plenty of playtime with her best friend Luke and surprised us all by taking four steps across her Gran & Granda’s living room.

At her party (why yes, she DOES have bunches in her hair!)

Getting her cake on her birthday (bonus shot of my funky new hair!)

Enjoying her cake (can you see why she has no clothes on?!)

In other news, Erica was thrilled to receive a copy of Jackson’s Garden (by Bath-based author & artist Gillian Carson) recently and it was just so beautiful I felt I had to share it with you lot. The story goes that a snail visits Jackson’s Garden and starts to eat the fruits (or vegetables!) of his labour so Jackson works out a mutually-beneficial plan. It’s a nice little story that not only encouraged the kids to go and plant some seeds, but I liked the underlying message about being kind to all wee beasties. Despite being a massive fan of the handmade & homemade movement it would never have occured to me to buy a book like this, so I’m glad I had the opportunity to see this and share it with you lot.

Anyway, the book arrived packaged up beautifully and with a packet of lettuce seeds attached (seeds only posted within Europe, outside of Europe purchases will be sent a set of cute stickers instead) which got Erica SO EXCITED that Bob & I took the kids outside to our sadly neglected front garden and spent the evening clearing the weeds, levelling the ground and planting the lettuce. I’m hoping that this will be the start of our family gardening adventure so I’ll update again when the lettuce starts to poke through. A brilliant book for encouraging your little ones into the garden and away from the TV.

Erica with her new book

Look how amazing this is!

As if that wasn’t cool enough, Gillian keeps a blog which is extremely informative for the novice gardener – go check her out!

I do have loads and loads more for you – including the amazing story of how I got my dog back after seven years which is like something out of Homeward Bound, a brooch tutorial and maybe a giveaway or two – so make sure you come back over the weekend.

Have a good one!

Posted under family

3.

3

How is that even possible?

Was it really only three years ago that you were born, dear Erica? Three years? It doesn’t seem possible after your first year which was so terrifying that I wasn’t sure you’d make it to three.

You were so sick that this was your default expression for the first six months of your life:

This is you a week after your first birthday. You weighed just under 15lbs and had finally managed to double your birthweight. At the time it was daunting but looking back at old photographs of you it’s terrifying to see how tiny you were:

You didn’t walk until you were 15 months. You had no teeth or hair until after that, all as a result of your body prioritising your growth above everything else and yet you were always so happy. So cheerful. So pleased to see your brothers, Daddy and me. Then of course not two weeks after your second birthday we made you a big sister. What really struck me when we cuddled Greer into you for her first sisterly cuddle was your hands – how all of a sudden, you’d grown. That moment took my breath away because it was the moment that cemented for me that you were going to be just fine:

For you, this has been the year of making friends. At nursery you have a merry band who excitedly shout as they see you coming to the door in the morning. You are blessed with a beautiful smile & the ability to make friends almost immediately which makes us ever so happy, just as you always seem to be. It is an honour and a privilege to share our lives with you and we wish you many happy returns today on your 3rd birthday.

Happy birthday, darling girl x

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In a Victor Meldrew style, I’ve spent the last day or two exclaiming, “I don’t BELIEVE it”. How is it possible that Nairn is turning four already? How did that happen?

I’ve always said that Findlay’s first four years felt like the longest of my life, but Nairn’s have flown past. I feel like we’ve only just had him so how can he possibly be this age already? How can the baby I brought home from the hospital just a short while ago be preparing for his preschool year at nursery? It’s just unfathomable. For all of you out there with young children: Cherish this time, no matter how hard it is. It’s over far too quickly.

For the fact fans out there:
Nairn weighed 9lb 3oz at birth.
I was induced at 14 days post-dates.
Nairn was due on 18th February but due to his late arrival has missed the cut-off for starting school this year.
Nairn is the animal lover out of our children
His nickname is “George” (… of the jungle) because he’s so large and lumbering but generally kind
He is probably the most loving of our children
He loves to read and his current favourite book is Stick Man by Julia Donaldson
He carries about a really revolting quilt that has fallen apart inside. He won’t sleep without it.
He wants to marry Rachel, one of his ‘Ladies’ at nursery. Or his best friend, N.
I hope he never changes.

Happy birthday my sweet, sweet boy and thank you for bringing four years of light and love to our family.

Meeting his big brother for the first time

Six months

One year, earning the “Destroyer” nickname

Fourteen months, with a new sister

Two

Three

Four

Posted under family

Today it’s my wonderful husband‘s birthday. Not a particularly special age, but a very special man.

In our house, it’s almost always Bob who makes dinner. In fact, I think I could count on both hands how many times I’ve taken a turn while we’ve lived here because we cook the vast majority of our meals from scratch and Bob is very quick at putting meals together whereas I am distinctly not. The usual exception to the “Bob cooks” rule is birthdays and Father’s day because really, that’s only fair. I asked my dearly beloved what he wanted and he told me, “lasagne and crème brûlée”. Easy enough, I thought, before remembering that I also needed to make a birthday cake. Hmm. I had decided on a pavlova because Bob had mentioned in passing that he really liked it but I had NO IDEA it was going to involve so much work! Luckily for me he changed his mind about dinner and decided he wanted pizza instead so I didn’t have to spend the entire day in the kitchen!

The most time-consuming and annoying part of this entire process was having to separate nine eggs. I hate separating eggs but luckily this time I managed all nine without breaking any yolks. Hoorah! Following this pavlova recipe I made the meringue first, put it in the oven for the alloted time and opened the oven as recommended to allow the meringue to cool down and dry out before realising that it was only cooked on the outside. I turned it over and put it back into the oven for another hour but I suspect my error was that the egg whites weren’t whipped firm enough before I shaped the meringue (perhaps worth noting here that I used nine regular sized egg whites from our own hens and not the nine large whites called for in the recipe). Delia Smith recommends baking your meringue the day before and leaving it in the oven overnight to cool and dry out, I may do that next time.

In the meantime, I was extremely happy with how the crème brûlée worked out! I made it after I put the meringue into the oven and it was easy as pie. The one aspect I wasn’t happy with is that our grill isn’t really good enough to caramelise sugar so I’m going to have to get my hands on a little kitchen blowtorch. Which seems kind of pointless when I can use it on one thing that I don’t make very often!

Recipe – Lemon Raspberry crème brûlée (makes 8 )

750ml double cream
Grated peel of one lemon
170g caster sugar
9 egg yolks
2 tsps vanilla extract
pinch salt

8 tsps brown sugar
punnet raspberries
Chambord or crème de cassis (optional)

Preheat your oven to gas mark 4/180C. Mix the lemon peel with the cream, put in a saucepan and heat until the cream is simmering. Meanwhile whisk the egg yolk and caster sugar until thick – using a handheld electric whisk this took roughly two minutes for me – then add the hot cream gradually. Take your time at this juncture – I just about redecorated my kitchen at this stage! Add the vanilla extract and salt, then set your custard aside.

Get the largest roasting dish you can find which will fit in your oven and put eight ramekins in it before filling the dish with boiling water to roughly half the height of your ramekins. Pour your custard into the ramekins through a sieve to remove the lemon peel then carefully lift your roasting dish into the oven. Bake for 55 mins-1 hour before taking them out of the oven. Chill uncovered until your custard is firm which will take at least three hours.

About an hour before you plan to serve your crème brûlée, put your ramekins on a baking tray and sprinkle 1 tsp of brown sugar over each one. Put under the grill (or use your blowtorch at this juncture) until the sugar has melted and browned. Put back into the fridge to harden. Put your raspberries into a bowl and add enough chambord or cassis to let your raspberries soak then leave for the rest of the hour. Spoon your raspberry mixture onto your ramekins immediately before serving.

Posted under baking, dyeing wool, family, recipes, sewing